


After

by AmyWilldo



Series: This is not a love story, he lied [3]
Category: Much Ado About Nothing - Shakespeare
Genre: BBC, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2017-03-07
Packaged: 2018-09-28 16:49:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 19,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10140083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmyWilldo/pseuds/AmyWilldo
Summary: There's only so long you can stay rosy eyed and the dupe of cupid. What happens after you see through it all? And you still want it to be true?





	1. Part 1: in which Beatrice uncovers the ruse

The hospital hall was empty, machines pinging in the background. Nothing to be done for Hero now, and no reason to stay. His hand was strange in hers, like she’d never felt it before, but of course she had, must have done, they’ve known each other for five years at least. Although not most of the last three of them. His thumb’s tracing her palm, and it half tickles, half not. And entirely inappropriate in this setting. In this context. In this lifetime.  
They’d talk later, she’d said. They didn’t talk in the cab, and when they returned to the hotel, to their separate rooms, she could hear him packing through the interconnecting door, silent. So was she.  
To wait, or not? She chose not, and expected not to find him in the foyer, and she didn’t. She had a taxi called, and she caught the taxi, and she left, as she’d arrived. Alone.  
It was in the taxi that she heard the good news, and that blurred out everything. Was more important than anything else. That Hero wasn’t dead, wasn’t in a coma, wasn’t circling the drain was more important than the way his hand had felt in hers, and why she, mistress of the snark, hadn’t had anything clever to say to him in the nice department. And why she hadn’t waited, and he hadn’t called.  
Hero would be back at work within a month, but they’d already brought a ringer in, weather girl wannabe from the local college, all teeth and tits and curls. You couldn’t, shouldn’t, wouldn’t ever say that about Hero, even if she hadn’t been the daughter of the boss, all heart and good feelings about everyone and everything. Probably less now, and she wanted to hurt Claude for that. Wanted him to suffer for it, for breaking Hero’s heart, and she didn’t care if he’d already cried his eyes out. Boys like that always did, and nothing would ever change. Claude wouldn’t be back at all and they’d need to find someone else for sports. In the meantime, she and Ben would need to fill the hour, give the audience a show, cover the lawn bowls, the local weekly ball tosses. She didn’t think that would be hard. What would be hard would be not.  
There was little enough of the weekend left to not sleep through, and she didn’t. At two in the morning, she wondered what would have happened had she leaned in, the night before. At four in the morning, halfway through a cigarette she hadn’t smoked, she wondered whether he’d shaved his beard because of what she’d said, remembered the shadows against her mouth, as he’d pressed against her hard, stopping the world for the critical second, dropping the ball, dropping everything. At five, she wondered how it had come about, that from one weekend she’d gone from a joyless frigid bitch, his words, not hers, to someone he’d go mad without. That wasn’t normal. Was it? She’d lost touch, somewhere in the tequila shooters and the wedding dramas.  
At seven, putting on stockings, standing starkers before the mirror, before putting on her face, she had the answer. None of it was real. She’d been fooled into believing, caught up in the histrionics of the twenty somethings on the way to the altar, and so had he. There was nothing after all, and the bed was going to stay determinedly empty.  
Again.  
The walk to work, she feels the voices in her ear, some of them his, calling her names. He hates her, really, he does. She’s too smart for her own good. Too unappreciative. Too old. Let the wardrobe mistress have him. Let the young, non middle aged women, who don’t sit up and watch pointless TV from their empty bed in the wee hours of the morning make the play with their hard edged version of seduction. He’s not hers. Not really. And she’s going to have to tell him that.  
His photo is on the wall, just next to the security desk. His eyes are on her, and she doesn’t rise to the anger she usually feels at having to show her credentials to enter. He’s going to hate this, just as much as she does, and then he’s going to hate her again. It’s unbearable. She stays in her dressing room as long as she can, until the last minute, then it’s to the bull pens, and the run down. She doesn’t look at him as she steals the chair.  
Hero’s status starts the meeting and the tears well in her eyes, but she forces them down. The anger stings her tongue, but Claude’s not there to unleash it on, and she’s said her piece. No one mentions Claude, or the weekend, or makes any comment about who left with whom, or who didn’t. Perhaps no one noticed, after all, there’s no one laughing at them from stage off, and the joke’s been lost along the way. Perhaps she’d like to keep it like that. Perhaps she just won’t ever talk to him again.  
The daily run down, he’s silent. He’s not making the sickening sweet remarks of the weekend, but he’s not biting at her either. The nursing home story makes it in, and he’s got one about the antique fair, and she bites her tongue on the knowing comment it wants to make. There’s no banter. Nothing’s normal.  
She makes a break for it at the end of the meeting, running scared, coward, bumping her shin on a table as she goes. The truth is, she doesn’t want to do this in front of anyone else. It’s one thing to tease and taunt, and snap your fingers in fun, it’s quite another to publicly strip yourself bare. Summon the bravery of her tongue into true bravery of spirit, and just tell him, tell him straight up that they’ve both been deceived, and watch his face crumble and hide that she’s breaking. Strip him bare for all to see. That’s unacceptable.  
If it were last week, and Hero married, she would half expect him to appear at her doorway, sent on a spurious mission by the meddlers, but she’s mindful that one suspect is in hospital, and another sacked, and Don, the chief stirring up of all the shit that had Claude break Hero’s heart at the altar fired or fled, and likely enough, everyone else has set to one side the game that had been played out over the last week of let’s watch Ben and Beatrice make fools of themselves, rather than each other. No. If she’s going to bring this to a head, it’s going to have to be something she initiates. In private.  
In the flip top mirror, she looks herself, if a tired version of herself, hair flipped out, refusing to even pretend to be in order. It doesn’t matter anyway, he’s seeing what he wants to see, and when she bursts the bubble, it’s going to be the Beatrice he doesn’t talk to, not the one he dreams about and it’s all going to change again and she doesn’t want it to. His door is shut. She can’t hear anything. She raise her hand to knock, and looks at it expectantly, but can’t bring herself to make the final motion. This can wait, he had said. Surely it could wait until after the broadcast?  
Warm breath on her ear. There’s a body there, almost but not quite touching, and what feels to be a hand at her waist. Holding her still. There’s nothing she wants more in the world than to sink back into the arms, be held in that embrace, but it wouldn’t be fair. Wouldn’t be right. Not to him, and not to her.  
He’s not speaking, so she doesn’t. Allows herself this moment, because she’ll need it later.  
“How are you doing? No. Stupid question. I know how you’re doing. Hero’s still in hospital, and nothing’s the way it should be.”  
She lets out a sigh, and it sounds half like tears. If she turns now, she’ll cry.  
“I meant what I said, you know.”  
“Which bit?” she asks, and she doesn’t recognise her own voice, and she better not sound like that later today or the good people of Wessex who wants to see a TV presenter won’t be happy. Light hearted local news is what she’s paid for, and what she sounds like right now is someone who should be a million years away from the camera, this waiting breathlessness of a girl, this person who she doesn’t know anymore. She can’t turn. His other hand on her hip.  
“All of it,” he whispers, and she can feel his lips tickle on the side of her neck, “but right now I’m talking about Hero. I’m going to make it right.”  
She has to tell him. She doesn’t.  
“We’ll talk after the show. Because I don’t know what Hero would think makes this right. Right?”  
The exhalation from his laugh stirs her hair, she can feel it.  
“Bloody death, is what I was expecting you to say. Eat his heart in the marketplace, remember?”  
She does remember. She remembers exactly the way that felt and she never wants to feel that way again, thanks. She’s had time to think. Seen Hero in a hospital bed, in a coma. Heard her voice on the phone, a shadow of her normal cheeky flirty self, telling her not to get her knickers in a twist, that she’s alive, and that she’ll deal with bastards Claude and Don her own self, and if Beatrice tries to fight her battles for her, Hero won’t be grateful. No. She can’t say all of this now. In a corridor. With his hand waiting to pull her in. And a broadcast to do.  
“After the show, right?”  
He’s smelling her hair. Or her neck. Or something. She can’t remember putting on perfume in the last 24. It’s got to stop.  
“Ben, I said, after the show, right?”  
His hands let go, but he doesn’t step back.  
“After. I’ll see you after. You going to let me in, then?”  
She thinks it’s a promise. She thinks it’s a warning. She opens her eyes, and steps aside.  
He opens the door and puts a hand up on the doorframe. His shirt’s open, and she can see the hair that’s normally hidden when he’s done up for the show. He’s looking down at her, half challenge, half invitation. Tip her head up and he’ll kiss her. In front of everyone.  
“I’m not kissing you,” she blurts out, surprised at herself. His eyebrows go up, and his head comes down, and the look’s all challenge now, like she’s dared him on. She’s seen it before, and she knows now that she likes it. She brings the sword down. “I’m wearing makeup.” And she ducks out and darts down the corridor. Like she’s wearing wings.


	2. Part 2: in which Ben doesn't care

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a shift, that's for certain

The day’s a blur. Ben hasn’t embarrassed himself too much, not like last week, no effusive praise of her body parts, her speaking voice, her intelligence, but he feels like the camera’s caught him gaping at her one too many times, particularly given they’re covering for Claude and they’re on the screen most of the show, and Peter the producer will be having a word with him after, teenager that he’s become once again. He’s wearing the only tie he’s ever worn that she expressed a positive opinion on, and that was five years ago, and Margaret, mistress of all the costumes, smirks at him as she straightens it, like she knows a delightful secret, and she’s just waiting to share. He’s not playing that game anymore. He shaved again, ten minutes to air, willing his hands to be steady. Everything’s become very clear, like he’s suddenly wearing glasses. She loves him. She said so. Beatrice is never wrong, so it must be true. From that, everything else flows.  
Claude’s texted him almost non stop since it all happened. He hasn’t answered any of them. He wouldn’t know where to start. He’s said everything he wants to say tonight. He’s thinking of how to make him pay, not in blood, as Beatrice wants, because he doesn’t do the fisticuffs, but in something that’s going to hurt him far worse, a story. He’s going to be made to face it, what he’s done. Not just apologise. It doesn’t matter how many times you profess your apologies after you do what Claude’s done. It’s all down to Hero now. If he were Hero, he wouldn’t have a bar of Claude. Not now, anyway.  
Beatrice, though. To his mind, it’s like she’s walking on glass, afraid she’s going to break through. Not the fire of last night. It’s the Beatrice of the hospital, all quiet and scared, not the one of fire and anger present at the hotel. He’s not used to this one.  
He’s half a mind to text her, send her home, with a promise that they’ll sort it tomorrow, get a good night’s sleep, love, love! He wonders how he got to this place. He doesn’t text girls. Women. He has her number, sure, but he doesn’t text. He shoots, he scores, he moves on. Beatrice is different. This is different, and he doesn’t know why. It’s like the crew switched the light on for him, and he’s in a different room to the one he’d been in before. Wallpaper, and fancy, and all, and he fits, he doesn’t feel like he’s playing a part. He really should thank them. If it wasn’t so strange, he would.  
He’s being selfish now, but he wants to see her. Wants to know that she’s as okay as she can be, with Hero in hospital, wants to hear her again, even if it’s about Claude, and the debacle that’s going to be him sitting Claude down in a pub, laying it on the line, and spending time with the young fool when it’d be so much easier just to punch him. That raspy voice, even if it’s sandpapering him into shape. Wants, and this is only if she’s ready this time, to kiss her again.  
He hasn’t been in her dressing room since forever. It’s sparsely decorated, like she could leave at a moment’s notice, although she’s been at the station for such a long time that she wouldn’t. Not like he did. She’s taken her make up off, he notices, and feels it for permission. She’s smiling, but her eyes aren’t.  
“Sit down,” she says, and it’s somewhere between a suggestion, and an order. He takes the only seat, and she takes a step back.  
“I need to tell you something,” she says, and he waits. Hands on his knees.  
“No,” she says, “I need to ask you something, and it’s not about Claude.”  
He sits back, and folds his arm. He can feel a chill, and there’s a draught down his back.  
“It’s about,” and she gestures between them.  
“Say it then,” Benedick suggests. He’s expecting something, after all, his heart tells him, as it soars to the ceiling, and he tells it to behave.  
“I think that perhaps we’ve been made a diversion.”  
“I don’t understand”, he says. “A diversion from what?”  
“No, I’m not explaining properly. I think we’ve been set up.”  
And with that, he understands. He may not be as smart as her, but he gets it. The staged conversation he’d overheard, every word rushing to the surface, Claude being all strangely psychoanalytical, it’d been a joke. She didn’t love him. She wasn’t pining. It wasn’t all too much for her, it was non existent. There’d been, no doubt, a similar set of circumstances, someone had told her he was in love, and that’s how they’d gone from point A, where she told him he was a buffoon, to point B, where she told him she loved him so much she could hardly breathe. And she wouldn’t be telling him again.  
Her face is flushed, and her arms folded, defensive across her stomach. She never stands like that. She’s always ready to strike first, not anticipating the blow. She never used to. Her chest is heaving, like she’s going to scream, the hysterical Beatrice about to lose the plot, and he can’t have that. He’s standing, suddenly, before he meant to, and the room spins a little, or perhaps it’s just his head, and he holds her arms, to steady her, to steady himself. Feels her muscles, strong under his hand. She’s meeting his eyes now, and she looks nervous. Scared. Ashamed? That’s unacceptable, buffoon though he might be. She can’t be made less because of this.  
“Doesn’t matter. Does it?”  
He softens his hold, rubs her arms, slowly. She might not love him, and he can’t think about that right now, and the walls are slightly closer than they were before, but he can’t have her think that she’s ridiculous. Because she’s not. And if there’s anyone to be made a fool of, it can be him. Let them all think she’s taken him out on a few dates, out of pity, like Hero for Don, and he can bury the rest of himself later. Play it out.  
“Yes. It matters,” she hisses. And she’s kissing him. She’s kissing him, and he’s stunned. He’s confused all over again, even as her hands are on his face, and her body flush against his, and the chair on the back of his legs, and there’s no joke in this at all.  
And he has to stop. Tells himself as he runs a hand down her back, and it sinks in. He lets her go, gently pushes her, and she stumbles as she takes a step back.  
“Then I’m going to go. What they’ve done doesn’t matter. What we’re doing now does. And we’re going to do this properly. At least have dinner first. You said we needed to talk, yeah?”  
She nods, speechless, for a change.  
“This isn’t talking. It’s what we get to do after we talk.”  
He feels for the door behind him. Finds it.  
“Presumptuous, aren’t we? Friday night then. The Claremount, 7. If you don’t come this time, I’ll know who’s fooling whom."  
He smiles. She’s closing the circle. If he stands her up as he did 3 years ago, does the bolt for London, leaving her on an abortive first date, that’s it, they’re done, it’s over for ever and ever amen. That won’t be happening. Oh no.  
“I told you, I’m mad for you. I’m in your hands.”  
It feels like a confession. It feels like truth.


	3. Part 3: in which Claude is given his marching orders

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Benedict can't do anything about everything. This one thing he can do.

He’s at the pub, Claude weeping into his beer about how he honestly believed, honestly thought, and all the professed honesty’s a bit much. Hauls Claude outside, bails him up against the wall and tells him there’s nothing honest about what he’s done. Claude lets him. Asks him to punch him, points out the spot on his chin where he’s to target, and it’s all too easy. It’d be done for Claude, at that point, wouldn’t it? Absolution doesn’t come that easy. Not for Claude, and not for him.  
“You’re the next story. We’re going to do a story on sex and the modern world. Domestic violence and control. Sex positivity and why men don’t get to shame women. How about that? How about you do something real for a change? Yeah? And don’t even think about calling her again. You’ve had your say. Leave it.”  
Claude reels back, away from him and into the bricks of the wall. He derives a certain level of satisfaction in seeing him reach his hand up and around to probe his skull, and see the hand come back red, and he’s still on the moral high ground, having not taken the punch. Let him feel it.   
“Will you, ow, will you do something for me?” Claude’s looking at his hand now, and Ben wants to punch him all over again.  
“Tell me what it is first.” He feels it now too, the betrayal, as a personal thing. Claude was meant to look up to him, take his advice, seek out his sage fucking wisdom. Not believe Don, the company drunk. How had that happened? Little shit. Gormless big eyes, trampling on Hero. Trampling on Benedick and hauling this thing he’d had inside for Bea out into the open for everyone to laugh at? No favours. None.  
He hands Claude a beer coaster. Watches him attempt to use it as a bandage. Ineffectual in that as in every bloody thing else, apparently.   
“Tell her I’m sorry?”  
Ben shakes his head. Wants to shake Claude again.   
“I’m finding you a new job. Something out of this city. You’re going to go to bloody London and grow up, and then you can tell her. I’m putting you in a cab.”  
The minicab’s dank, and Ben feels glad about that too. Make him suffer. The new job’s not going to be a favour. It’s going to be punishment. Let the people of London swallow him whole and see how he does. It’ll be easy enough to arrange.  
He leaves the half drunk pint inside. Texts his old boss back in London as he walks. It’s a cool night, summer’s leaving, and the air clears his head. She hadn’t said it again. The windows wink out, one by one on the houses of her street. She didn’t move, when he left, she’s still in the same flat. He’s not sure if he’s supposed to be here, meant to know where she lives. Her light is off. If he called her now, would she answer? He doesn’t push his luck. Not tonight.


	4. Part 4: in which Beatrice answers the phone, even though everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Late night phone calls never stay on track

She begs off the morning run down meeting, and goes to pick up Hero. Just her. Just Hero. No father. Hero starts sentences and doesn’t finish them. Lots of “Do you think,” and “I don’t understand,” and “I’m not sorry, but”, and “I can’t believe my father told me to answer him,” and she does her best to reassure, and comfort, and makes endless cups of tea until it’s way past time for her to be at work. She’s there an hour before the show’s due. It’s the first time she’s done that in forever, and someone’s covered for her. No, not someone. It’s Ben, for there’s a script written in handwriting she knows as well as her own, and a cold cup of tea on her desk. No flowers. There’s a pot of cyclamens, spiky and angular and a shocking splash of colour in her office, and she’s charmed.  
Sitting across from him, stumbling through his words, words that he’s given her in an attempt at writing in her style and half way made it, cameras on, lights blazing, and she’s overwhelmed. It’s too much, and too close to perfect, and it’s not real. Their final goodnights chime at the same time, and she looks at him, and she just knows he’s done it on purpose. The word rascal comes to mind. No, rogue. There’s a look that he’s giving her, that’s like the one he usually gives Margaret’s chest, but he’s looking at her eyes, well, at first anyway.  
Mikes off, she reaches for his hand, and she’s too late, he’s stood up and making for the exit, where the cameras can’t see. But turns, and waits at the door until she arrives. Doesn’t take her hand. Walks her to her dressing room, and opens the door for her, like she’s entering a limo.  
“Thank you,” she says.  
“It’s my pleasure,” he bows his head, and for an instant, she feels like he’s going to kiss her, but it passes.  
She fills the silence, since he doesn’t seem to be leaving.  
“I took Hero home this morning. She’s still pretty messed up, but the doctors say she’s fine, medically speaking anyway. Doctors!”  
He cocks his head to one side, inviting more.  
“She’ll be back in next week. She wants to, she said. Claude won’t be around, right?”  
He shakes his head. “He’s filing one more story, should be ready Thursday, and then I’m putting him on a train to London to the most gruelling internship I could manage. Also, I did not punch him.”  
She’s not sure whether she wanted the violence or not. Hero hadn’t said she couldn’t have other people interfere with Claude. Just not Beatrice herself.  
“Probably best not. Wouldn’t want you arrested.”  
He smirks, slightly.  
“Then I’d have to cover it. Can you imagine the field day the tabloids would have? I’m surprised the whole debacle wasn’t in the Mail.”  
The smirk fades.  
“… it was?”  
He nods. “With a picture of her in a bikini. Probably Don. Bastard.”  
Ursula squeezes past him, and behind his back, gives her a none too subtle thumbs up, and just like that, it all comes crashing in again. The flowers, the script, the support, none of it real. It’s all staged, like he’s doing it because he knows he’s supposed to.  
“Right. Well. Best buy up the papers so she doesn’t see it when she’s back. If we were the hard edged news station you prefer, we’d be doing a story on revenge porn, I suppose. But tomorrow I’m sure will bring some fascinating glimpse into tea parties and weevil outbreaks. I’m going home.”  
He steps back, and it’s like he’s put a shutter on his face, no longer the clown, no longer the attentive lover.  
“Can I call you, you know, later?”  
“It’s a free country. You can try.” She shuts the door in his face, and feels like she’s kicked a puppy. It’s for his own good. It’s for hers.  
He calls her after he’s done calling the rounds in on Claude. Claude’s not done anything overly stupid, it turns out, not any more stupid than he’s done already, no long term damage, but it takes him five different calls to find him, and then some time to track down the garage. Crashed his car, and that takes some fixing, because although he’s a prat, he’s still, well someone who used to be his friend. His protégée. Someone who he thought looked up to him, and he feels in a way paternal towards. Still, even now, in the midst of his bull in a china shop moment, breaking everything into nothing, all of this chaos that everyone else has to fix up.  
The call goes through to voicemail, and he feels stupid. He doesn’t know what to say, she’s the one with the words, always has been, even when they were cub reporters, way before the comfy couch and the time on air. He’s the clown, she’s the clever. That’s how it works. So he says something stupid and meaningless, along the lines of “I told you I’d call. This is it, me calling. I’ve news, because that’s me, live at 5, but it can wait. Unless you call me. Sweet sorrow and all that,” and hangs up, kicking himself. Shouldn’t have tried.  
He’s stripped down for bed, lights out, sheets up, because this day can go and kick itself too, when he hears the phone go.  
It’s her, of course it’s her.  
“You called?” and he can’t help the tone of surprise that sinks in.  
“You asked me to. If you don’t want me to call you, don’t ask.”  
There’s a pause, after that. Like she’s waiting to see which way he’s going to jump. Then she jumps anyway.  
“But since we’re talking, before I hang up on you, you said you had news.”  
He gives it a beat. To see if she’s going to jump again. She doesn’t. Mistress of silences, who would have thought, she with all the smart aleck quips?  
“Claude smashed his car up. Single vehicle accident. Oh, he’s fine, but the repair bills’ a doozy. Would she want to know?”  
“Is it going to be in the papers?”  
He pauses. Hadn’t thought that one through.  
“Possibly. I had to get a tow truck in. If Sami’s on beat at the rag, he’ll be sniffing for more on the Hero story. I’ll see if I can do something.”  
“No,” she snaps. “Leave it. It’ll only make things worse if he says no. Friends of the groom and all that, yeah?”  
He sighs. “Yeah. And would there be a certain amount of relish I’m detecting? Just a tad? Just a smidge?”  
“You got me. With your clever powers of deduction, yes, I’m a bit glad that he’s suffering. I’ll see whether she’s in the right mood to hear about it tomorrow. Oh, and thanks.”  
“Thanks?”  
“For telling me. And for sorting him out. It’s decent of you.”  
There’s another silence. He’s nonplussed. She’s never thanked him before. It’s a first. In all the years on and off of fighting over leads, jockeying for position, it’s like she’d be conceding ground to admit he’d done something worthwhile. So that’s new.  
“You’re welcome?”  
“I’m hanging up now. That’s your lot.”  
“Really. Well, I guess it’s a start. We’ll work up to the heartfelt expressions of emotion again, shall we? The bits where you tell me why you couldn’t breathe, mmm?”  
There’s a line and he’s stepped over it. She’ll hang up now, of course.  
“I was obviously suffocating under your massive ego. You can go first. Tell me for which of my many excellent qualities you fell for me.”  
“We’re doing this, are we?”  
“Seems that way.” He can’t tell in the dark, over the phone, whether she’s laughing or crying, but there’s a shake to her breath.  
“We hadn’t met yet,” he says, slowly, dredging it up, “but we were at that intern meet and greet, and this older chap told you to go get his coffee. Bunch of cadets all standing around waiting for the tour, all guys, except you, and he asked you. D’you remember what you said?”  
There’s a pause, and he fills it.  
“You told him you’d get him a story, but you wouldn’t get him a coffee. And he gave you a notebook, and you left, d’you remember? Flounce of your skirt, flick of your hair, and off you went. You knew what you were, and what you weren’t, and I thought, god, I’d have got him the coffee and be stuck. That and your tits.”  
“Hmph.” She snorts. She’s silent, though. Thinking.  
He pulls the sheet down, too hot, stifling.  
“Well, I’ve shown you mine. Your turn, Bea.”  
“Don’t call me Bea. I’m not sure that I am, you know.”  
“Liar.”  
“You can’t prove anything. Not from over there.” Rustling in the sheets, her end too.  
“Let me put my fabled powers of deduction to the test. You’re in bed. I can hear that. No doubt in some highly lacey little black number of a nightie,” and he pauses, just to take in the mental picture he’s conjured up, “and instead of waiting till the highly business appropriate morning to talk about revenge, you’re ringing me, with that breathy note in your voice, and asking me to tell you sweet nothings. I’m pretty sure that you’re feeling some sort of way. How’m I doing?”  
There’s a pause. He’s lost her. It’s too far.  
“It’s not black and lacey. Lace itches. Special occasions only. If you must know, it’s green, and silky.”  
He’s lost himself. And in the silence, she hangs up. She hadn’t denied it, he realises, once he comes to his senses, after.


	5. Part 5: words, nothing but words, or viewed another way, proof

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben receives an email. It's a good one.

At the morning meeting, she faces him, with as stony a face as she can manage. Not admitting anything. Not letting any crack show.  
That lasts all of five minute, or less, as at the run down he catches her eyes as Peter’s explaining how they’ll be replacing Claude after this Thursday, with one of the cub roving reporters who tested the best , catches her eyes with a questioning eyebrow, and she realises her bra strap’s showing, and it’s green. She swears she didn’t do it on purpose.  
Not intentionally, anyway.  
She pulls her shirt over, to cover all her shoulder, and looks back at him, her eyebrow similarly quirked, a challenge, or a question, herself. He’s fanning himself, very overtly, with his notebook. She’s moderately pleased and more than moderately distracted.  
Peter asks for her opinion, and she says yes, that’ll be fine, and when the meeting’s over, she goes to her office, and instead of getting started on the text for her piece, she writes him an email. A love letter of sorts. It’s not quite as worthy a reason as his. She loves him, she says (because it feels cathartic to say so), because she hates him, or he hates her, and at some point it tipped over. You can only obsess over why someone hates you for so long before you’re just obsessing. The incident, she says, that sparked it all off, although the tipping point can’t and shouldn’t be narrowed down, was probably the same one.  
She doesn’t remember it quite the same way he does. The order to get the senior journo a coffee, and the refusal is correct, she says. It’s what went after that’s gone awry. He gave her the notebook, and told her to be back in an hour, and Benedick had said, as she left the room, something along the lines of she’d have to work twice as hard as everyone else to deliver the same result. Entirely plausible now that he’d meant it as a comment on the misogynistic prick they worked for. Sorry she hadn’t seen it at the time. At the time, she’d thought he’d been slighting her abilities. Without even knowing what they were. Really, she’s sorry.  
I should have asked you to stay on Saturday night, she writes. No, earlier than that, I should have left this place when you did. Perhaps I would have seen it sooner, how scarily perfect you are for me. Or I for you. Friday night. 7pm. Second chances, and all that.  
She sends it, quickly, before she can change her mind, but not before she’s checked for spelling and grammatical errors, because as much as she adores a good fight, it would be too shaming to have one where she’s in the wrong on something as simple as all that.  
Once it’s gone, she thinks again. If this is all a set up, and he’s grasping for explanations to support his theory that he loves her, she’s just given him positive evidence, written form, documented, and she has none. She’ll be made to look the fool, and while she doesn’t mind acting foolishly, it’s usually for a good cause. Not for herself. Not in anything so naked as this.  
There’s an option in the mail program to recall a message, if the recipient hasn’t opened it. She’s had to use it before, where she’d sent a story up to fact checking before it was quite fully baked. She’s clicked on it now, in a flurry of second guessing, and it doesn’t work.  
He’s read it.  
She pushes away from her desk like it’s on fire. Takes her security pass, and her phone, and makes a beeline for the lift, ignoring Margaret, waving a pile of swatches at her, and Ursula with some phone messages that can surely wait, and she feels like she’s suffocating until she hits the boardwalk by the sea, with the brisk air blowing it all away. Walks until she’s at the end of the pier, and sits at the bench, watching the waves crash on the rocks, grey and cold.  
There’s a buzz of her phone, and it’s Hero. Texting to say that she’s fine, and could she swing by after work. Have a glass or two and talk things over. Of course, she texts back. How could she not? She’s holding her phone still, and a new email notification pops up. It’s from him. Every muscle in her stomach clenches involuntarily, and she can feel the colour rush to her cheeks, and she wants to delete it without reading, but she can’t very well, can she?  
She opens it cautiously, feeling like she’s transgressing, like she’s accessing malware, and there’s another story pitch right there, and she stops. Tells herself to focus and not deflect. If this is real, if he actually feels it too, whatever this thing in her chest like a hidden megastore of helium, then it’s important. Worthy of attention.  
She reads. She reads it again. For a chap, it’s pretty emotion heavy. It’s perfect. It’s everything. There are even spelling errors, that’s how quickly he sent it. And he doesn’t oversell himself, doesn’t gush, doesn’t say things that are obvious exaggerations, just tells the truth. In as kind a way as possible. It’s something he does, she realises, as she reads.  
She’s perfect, he’s written. And yes, she’s wasted in Wessex, and he should have told her that when he left. Should have realised a lot of things sooner. What the buzz was that he felt when she sparked at him. Why it was that he couldn’t stop flicking the telly on, his night off, to see if she’d changed. She always had. Always and never the same, in the best way. He came back, because they’d asked. Wouldn’t go so far as to say because of her, because until he’d had some things pointed out to him, he hadn’t quite crystallised it all in his head, but she was certainly a bonus. And a job’s a job. London’s expensive, Wessex isn’t, and big smokes aren’t always all they’re cracked up to be.  
There’s a bit more about how she’s funny, and gorgeous, and the best failed matron of honour he’s ever seen in wings. And he signs off with love. She hadn’t dared.  
She wonders what his beard would have felt like, if he hadn’t shaved it off. Wonders, too, if he’s still using the product in his hair, or if it’s reverted to the natural curls she’d always secretly wanted to pull at, see if they bounce back. Now she wants to sink her hands into them, imagines his head on her white cotton pillowcases, and shivers.  
Friday seems like a long way away.  
As an afterthought, and because she is, after all, a journalist, and has stories disappear for lack of evidence, she takes a screenshot. Just in case.  
That afternoon, he doesn’t see her. He’s out with Claude, collecting interviews with domestic violence survivors, to have their faces blacked out, and their voices partly scrambled, and with the police who attend, and their media officer, and it’s going to be a good story. He’s told Claude that this isn’t just about him and the mess he’s made of Hero. To focus on all the women, the men, out there who need help. Not sure if that bit’s getting through, he’s pretty sure Claude is writing an epic sentimental hash up of an apology and going to trash Hero all over again, so he’ll insist on a pre-tape, and then edit it. That’s going to have to happen Thursday morning, because the afternoon’s spent in the studio, editing with the team, because he’s had redaction experience in London and they haven’t, and by the end of all that, he’s no time before time to air, so it’s a good job they’re all puff pieces tonight, and he can do the antique thing in his sleep. Why not, the show he does on the side airs in the middle of the night, when everyone else is.  
It’s a shock to see her, therefore, striding down the corridor in front of him, because he’s been so tunnelled, so down the rabbit hole of death, and rape, and emotional blackmail and violence that he’s put to one side the joy of her email. The joy of writing back, of laying himself bare on the page. And now there’s the joy of watching her, and not feeling odd. Although Margaret smirks at him, and tells him his tie’s on crooked, he fixes it by touch, because she’s changed too. It’s a white shirt, and translucent, and she must have been out, because although she’s brushed it, that lock of hair isn’t lying as flat as she likes it. There’s a slip over the green bra, but he thinks it’s still there. When he meets her eyes, ready for a reprimand, she’s flushed, as if he’s touched her rather than looked.  
The voice in the earpiece directs him gently to camera one, reminds him that the credits are done, and Wessex tonight generally works best when the presenters talk, rather than stare lovingly into each other’s eyes, and Peter must be amused, rather than angry, because he’s not pulled up for it after. Nor she.  
She doesn’t try to talk to him after, which is just as well, because he’s back in the edit suite. It’s all vicious nasty stuff. He wants to shake these men, shake Claude, out of these acts. Give them a chance to reset and behave like men should. Decent. Fair. Respectful. There’s a great bit from the police interview that he wants to end with, a call for men to support each other, to stand up and call out behaviour, but to lend a hand to help, not just the victims, but the men to find other ways to be. Knowing Claude, he wants to finish with the personal apology, and he’s not sure he’s earnt it. Benedick’s not going to let him apologise if he doesn’t truly get what he’s done, not just that he’s in this terrible place without Hero and he doesn’t like it very much and can he just go back to the way things were, courting the daughter of the boss.  
It’s after midnight when he’s home, too late to call. She’s in his dreams, though, dancing eyes and green silk.


	6. Part 6: in which they fall off the tightrope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our own hands against our hearts, or where it goes a bit wrong and then right. Very.

In the morning, her mouth tastes a bit like the floor of a parrot cage, no matter how much she brushes, and the toast doesn’t sit quite right, and that’s what you get for sharing a bottle of white with a crying woman who doesn’t drink when she’s sad, only when she’s happy. And the only thing that made Hero happy the night before and gave Beatrice’s liver a break, was Hero finding the photo laying Ben’s feelings bare, and honestly, after the event of the weekend, Beatrice should’ve known better than to leave her phone unlocked. Hero is unreasonably delighted, full of questions Beatrice can’t answer, and it’s honestly the only time she’s smiled since it all went down. Beatrice can’t quiz her about what exactly she was thinking, setting the two of them up like that like puppets for everyone’s amusement, because she really does love Hero like the younger sister she never had, and she’d like to think it’s all going to turn out well. White wine’s meant to be a depressant, but the depressant doesn’t kick in until the morning and the hangover.   
She’s at the coffee stand, and she thinks why not. Buys two. Leaves one on his desk. If it’s only a dream, a soap bubble, at least it’s been a good one. Friday night’s about a day and a half away, and either way it’ll be resolved then. Probably.  
She doesn’t see him the rest of the day, he’s absent the daily run down, and off with Claude, finalising the story, monopolising the edit suite, so she’s told. People giggle when she asks whether they’ve seen him, and her glacial stare has suffered the same fate as the glaciers to global warming, as it’s not effective to make the giggling stop. She has a story of her own to chase down for next week, tonight’s a couple of pre-recorded interest pieces to make room for Claude’s special story, introduced by Ben, whatever it is, next week she’s going to deliver one on corruption in nursing homes, or as good as, depending on what she finds. She’ll find something, she’s good. She doesn’t need Benedick to tell her that, but it’s nice that he did. Heartwarming. She’s warmed.   
In the afternoon, she sees Claude disappearing down the hall, and Benedick, shoulders down, walking with a resigned heavy tread, not his own usual light foot quick movement. Wants and doesn’t want to kill Claude anymore. Benedick’s promised, and she either trusts the promise, or she doesn’t. Besides, she promised Hero to leave him alone, so she watches, silently, as they turn the corner. He doesn’t look back.  
It’s an hour to show time, and she’s in clothes, but not make up, finishing touches to the wry quips around the puff pieces, when he knocks. She tells him to sit down, that he looks awkward, but this time he doesn’t. He’s nervous, she realises. Hasn’t been all week, with all the honesty that has her on edge, but he’s nervous now.   
“I’m not going to ask you to promise me anything, not to hit me, not to laugh, whatever. I just wanted to say,” and he pauses, and doesn’t say.  
She leaves the pause. Silence gets results, usually.  
He knows this one too and he leaves it. He walks over to her instead, kneels beside her, so that they’re the same height, no one looking down or up. He takes her hand, and she can feel the agitation.  
“This isn’t for you. It’s about doing the right thing. I’d have done it whether I promised you anything or not. I’d like you to remember that. No expectations, and all that.”   
She kisses his hand.   
“You’re being awfully cryptic. And melodramatic. And you’ve still got to pick out a tie. Whatever it is you’re trying to say, perhaps we’d be better off talking it through tomorrow at dinner. You know, when we don’t have to be on camera afterwards.”  
He smiles, but it’s forced. Slips his hand out of hers, and is back on his feet, and she can see the wear of the last week under his eyes, hopes Margaret insists on powdering him tonight, hopes he lets her.  
“Just remember, okay?”  
She nods, jerkily. After he leaves, when she looks at herself in the mirror, applies her own bag concealing foundation spackle to wipe out this morning’s hangover, and the stress of the last week, she looks worried.  
He paces his dressing room, second guessing the cut. Waves off Margaret, as has become the norm, but she grabs his tie, and forcibly restrains him, applying powder liberally, until he sneezes. Beatrice giggles. It’s not a sound he remembers her making, ever, this innocent little thing, not her usual cackle of mirth, not the full bellied laughter, or the polite on camera titter of amusement, it’s a new one, and he’d like to make her make it some more, but there isn’t time now.  
Her story on an unexplained rise in jam purchases ends, and he’s up. His introduction is sombre, straight into camera, and begs the audience’s indulgence, that this is a very personal story for him and his crew, and the last story that they’ll see with Claude Makewell as a presenter, who will be joining a production team in London. Then it’s roll camera, and they’re away.  
Claude’s been allowed to apologise on camera, as part of the intro, as long as he didn’t name her, and Ben’s been careful to have edited out anything overly mawkish, that didn’t ring true. To those who knew what had happened, it’ll mean something, mean everything, and to those who don’t, it’ll be a touching personal note to the story, give it a bit of colour, it’ll work either way.  
He can’t look at her while it plays, but he can’t not help but sneak glances at her, and she’s paled under the makeup. It’s a long story, but he and the team, and Claude, damn his eyes, have done a good job in maintaining the pace, and it’s ended on the note he wanted, a call to community to step up.   
It’s her cue, when it finishes, to thank him, and to introduce the next item on school lunches, but when he looks, she’s crying. Peter’s whispering in his ear that it’s camera on him, he’s to take it, and he fumbles his way through, and the tape plays, and once the camera’s off, Margaret’s on her, not at first with the make up, but to enfold her in a bony hug, and he should have thought more about what it would mean for her, on air, prepare her for it, and he didn’t think, and by the time he’s processed that, Margaret’s powdered her, fixed the eyes as best she can, and it’s back on them for the final close, which she takes now, ever the professional, steady voice, and it’s roll VR, and credits and out.  
He stays put. He’s not quite sure what to expect. Demikes, while Margaret’s helping her, and then, it’s just the two of them, oh, and a studio full of watching people.  
There’s clapping in his ears, and it’s Peter. “Easily going to be the best segment all year. Well done, son. Well done.”  
He’s going to have to buy the edit suite a fruit basket. A case of bubbly. The studio’s full of applause, and Leonard’s chief amongst it.   
“Pub,” Leonard’s shouting, and he must have done good. Someone’s passed a phone to Beatrice, and she’s not taken her eyes off him to talk, so he must have done something right.  
He’s put Claude on the train already, so that’s done, sorted, final. Except nothing’s ever final, because here he is, back like he’s never left. He’s two pints in and he loves everyone. Hero’s not here, of course, and neither’s Bea, presumably off with her deconstructing what Claude meant, whether he deserves a second chance, all that, but this crew, who pulled together something that looks like a month of investigative reporting, way above their normal cut and paste on the Cheese Festivals of the region, he’s damn proud. He’s shouted everyone a round, and someone’s shouted him back, and he’s a good way along the road to being happy when she arrives, as Leo leaves, gone to check on his daughter, changing of the guard.   
If she’s been crying again, he can’t tell from here, her eyes are either smoking hot or he’s tipped over into beer goggle territory. Peter beckons her over, and like some sort of party trick, the entire crew comes together to ensure the only space she could possibly fit into is by his side. The entire length of his side. If he turns his head now, looks at her, they’ll have an audience again, and he finds he doesn’t care. She’s squeezing his hand under the table.  
She is, in point of fact, staring at him. Her mouth is parted, soft, like she’s going to say something, curved up at the edges, half smiling, and he can’t wait any more. Moves in to fit his to hers, solve the puzzle, and she moves back. Drinks the shot that someone’s produced for her, and shivers.  
“You surprised me, you know. Lulled me into a false sense of where you were up to with all that antiquing. Then you go and do that. You really have changed.”  
He smiles. “I haven’t. This is the hidden depths part.”  
“I like it.” Her eyes twinkle.  
“Wait till you see what else I’ve got. Tomorrow night, I’m going to rock your world.”  
“Ooh, lovely,” she coos in sarcastic fashion. “Will there be poetry? Again?”  
“Baby, when I’ve finished with you, you’ll be poetry,” he mock leers.  
It’s too loud, and falls into a silence in the conversation. There’s way too many eyes on them, and some of them are looking far too smug. And the chief instigators of the whole thing aren’t even there, and wouldn’t be fair targets even if they were, members of the walking wounded. Peter, Leonard and Margaret are, though, and they’ll do.  
“Aw,” says Margaret. “That is easily the cheesiest thing I’ve ever heard any bloke say. Well done, Beatrice!”  
She glares across the table. “What, this?” And she holds his hand up. “This isn’t real. We’re stringing you along. For a laugh. Wasn’t that what you wanted?”  
He’s empty inside. Cored and gutted in one fell swoop. She’s always been quicker than him. And less brave. He’s forgotten how long it’d taken to get her to agree to a date, last time, and that, again, was under the pretext of a dare. And she’s done it again. He’s done.   
“Yeah. Like this could ever be real. The two of us? We thought we’d play along, give you lot something to gawk at rather than gossip over Hero. Well. Job well done, Bea.”  
Deliberately, she lets his hand go, and it falls to the table, made of lead, in a puddle of stale beer. Less than nothing.   
“Don’t call me Bea. No, in fact, don’t call me at all.”  
The ale he’s drunk sits queasily in his stomach now, and he’s forgotten to eat, most of the day, and he needs to be gone. Pushes his way up, through Peter on his other side, jostling the crisps so they fall into the sticky floor. It’s all over. This was never going to work. He’ll phone in his resignation tomorrow, and she can cover out the week. He’s gone.  
Margaret’s grabbing at his shoulder, and spins him round with more force than he’d reckoned she’d have.   
“I’m pretty sure that’s all rubbish. See this?” And she’s holding her phone up, and it’s blurry. Squints in, and recognises words. Scarily perfect, he remembers. His head is spinning.   
“Christ, Bea, do you never lock your phone?”  
Peter, sitting down, has Beatrice’s phone up for everyone else to see, and there’s what he’s written too.   
“I said, don’t call me Bea.” She’s standing now too, having snatched her phone back from Peter, with an evil glare more firey than the Eye of Sauron.  
“Fine. Sorry. I’m a little drunk.” He says, in a voice she doesn’t recognise. Nowhere near the confident newspeak. Or the gravelly late night one she was introduced to, earlier in the week. “Okay. You’ve all caught us. Well done. We’re very deeply in love, just like Claude and Hero. You remember those two, right? Be afraid. Very afraid. Now we’re going to continue our night somewhere else, far, far away from you. Enjoy yourselves. My lady?” He’s offering her his hand. It’s shaking, slightly. Moment of truth, and all that.   
It hangs there, for a second. C’mon, Beatrice.   
She doesn’t take it. What she does do, is step in, and slide one hand behind his head, into his curls, and pull his head to hers, pausing at the last minute.  
He dips his head down to hers, closes the gap in answer, stopping her mouth. She’s sweet and bitter all at once, and just as fierce as him, and there’s no air left in his lungs when they break.   
“And well done Ben,” Margaret’s saying somewhere in the universe elsewhere from him, and he has to think for a minute to remember where they are. Where they should be.  
“We’re leaving now,” Ben says, because Bea’s head is on his shoulder, not looking at any of the crowd making the smart alec remarks for her, and as simple as that, they’re gone.   
It’s a cool night, there’s a kebab truck down the street, and they’re both hungry, and you can eat a kebab one handed, so they do. He wipes her face, and she wipes his. Meandering has taken them to a safe place, the boardwalk, not his, not hers, and not private enough to do anything much, and not quiet enough to talk, over the sounds of the seagulls and the waves and the wind, so that she can kiss him, and he her, without anything to come of anything, in a silly teenage fashion, and without having to explain, or talk, or think. Think about tomorrow. That’s a future Beatrice problem. His hair feels exactly as good as she thought it would. And the rest of him.   
She walks him home. She wants to investigate, see what his private space tells her, but he tells her it’s too soon and he’s waiting for their official date, that this doesn’t count. She tells him he’s delightfully old fashioned and he laughs. To his gratification, she giggles again, only stopping to kiss him.   
He walks her home. He wants to investigate, to see what her space tells him, and she tells him that what’s sauce for the goose is most definitely sauce for the gander, and if she has to wait, so does he.   
Lying in her bed, alone, most definitely now alone in the absence of Ben, she imagines him next to her. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.


	7. Part 7: after the fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The night forgets to end

He’s bought her another potted plant, she discovers in her dressing room. That’s okay, she’s bought him a cactus to discover, carefully disguised on his chair. Wouldn’t want it to be too easy. She can patch him up afterwards, if necessary.  
At the morning run through, she shoots him with a pretend arrow when he blows her a kiss, which he pretends to catch and stow in an equally pretend quiver. There’s nothing much to concentrate on for the Friday show, anyway, some puff promos for the Mayor, and the weekly wrap up, and the afternoon is spent flirting over email. Which is ridiculous, because if one was to knock down two plaster walls, they’d be in the same room. They could walk to each other, and yet they don’t.  
The show itself is an exercise in restraint. She feels like laughing when she looks at him, so she doesn’t. She’s challenged him to incorporate a reference to Shakespeare into one of the promos, figuring he must have more than the passing interest he displayed in the sonnets, and he doesn’t disappoint, managing to slip into a commentary on the Mayor’s plans for a new bypass, that while it won’t be completed for three years, the readiness is all, and she knew it, knew he was buttering her up that night seeking her translation of the poem. Doesn’t care. Hopes she gave him something he didn’t have before.  
They make their own ways to the restaurant. He’s there early, this time, and walks the block three times, just so he can be slightly, but only slightly, late. Wouldn’t want her to really worry, that’d be cruel. Off kilter is how he likes it, how she likes him, he thinks, not the predictable smarm he’d dish out, the usual patter. Things that are real. Things that are painful and honest and are going to hurt if she lets them drop, that’s what she likes.  
She’s in the dress he missed out on three years ago on the date that never was, (she’s told him that she’s going to wear it so he doesn’t forget) and it’s green, and her eyes are sparkling when he sits down. It’s going to be good, and it’s going to hurt like hell and he’s scared and he wants it. All of it.  
So he tells her, when she asks, five minutes in, the allotted time for polite small talk being up and one glass of bubbly down, he tells her the real story of London, that the brass ring that had been dangled in front of him was just too high. That the call from Wessex was at exactly the right time for him to jump, rather than be pushed, to have to admit that he wasn’t quite good enough for the big league, too charming, too light, not quite the gravitas needed, and that it stung like crazy. It’d been the once in a lifetime opportunity for which he’d run out on Wessex, and he wasn’t saying it wasn’t worth it, because he’d had to try. Just that it stung that he’d not cut the mustard. Not quite first date talk, but this wasn’t quite their first date, of sorts, anyway.  
She was silent, sipping the champagne, throughout. Helpful nods, and interview questions to keep him flowing, but no sympathetic shoulder to cry on. Straight backed and clear eyed. Doesn’t offer him the line about London’s loss is Wessex’ gain, she’s not doing smarm tonight either. Instead, out of the blue, having dealt with the entrees, and crusts of bread being swept away, she offers him this: that she thinks herself a coward, for not having tried. That there’d been an offer, last year, just after Claude had been promoted to sports, and she’d thought he was being groomed, new blood and all that, to take a stint in London herself. And she hadn’t taken it. When pressed, she admits to the following: that she’d been concerned that between her incompetent and drunk co-host, and the inexperienced and not overly endowed with intelligent sports intern stepping up, the whole news hour would have devolved into something not even the Daily Mail would bother with, and she couldn’t have that on her conscience, and secondly, that it would’ve meant working with him, and that whole battlefield she’d decided to stay away from.  
“And yet,” he says, and rubs her palm with his thumb.  
She shrugs. “I think I was right. You can’t honestly tell me that if you couldn’t cut it in London, that I could. Or that if our paths had crossed in the London office, us fighting for the same newsdesk, we’d be here now. I know exactly how it’d have gone. The same way it did two weeks ago, with us shouting at each other but on Hampstead Heath, not the boardwalk, and with no interfering busy bodies to care, we’d not be making googly eyes at each other like teenagers instead of people who’ve just turned thirty and ought to be sensible.”  
He looks at her hand, turns it over, and kisses her wrist. “I did miss your birthday in there somewhere.”  
“Birthdays should be banned. It devolved into another fancy dress party, and Hero asking me very seriously whether menopause was something I was looking forward to. I’m only thirty for heaven’s sake! That wasn’t the point.”  
“Your point isn’t even that. It’s two fold, I’m guessing. May I guess?”  
She shrugs, and the shawl slips down. Bare shoulders. He tries to keep his eyes up, fails.  
“I’m going to dispose of your first point without even saying what it is, because I’m pretty certain we would have arrived here somehow sooner rather than later. One pint too many at a Xmas party, and I’d have tried to kiss you. I’m pretty certain of that.”  
“Very confident, but I’ll allow it for the time being.”  
“Second point I don’t have an answer for. But we’re going to figure it out together. It’s what you do next. You’re wasted here. You know it. And you know you’re not responsible for the station’s rise and fall, right? Unless it’s station chief you’re after. Are you?”  
She’s nonplussed.  
“Where’s the roses and sweet talk, Ben? It’s like we’re putting together a business partnership.”  
He pauses, as the plates are placed. There’s food there, but it’s not important.  
“That’s not a bad idea either. And you don’t like sweet talk. You’ve told me that. You also told me we had to talk. This is me, talking.”  
She swallows. “It’s just more impressive than I’d allowed for.”  
“Well, that’s London for you. You wouldn’t believe the number of strategy meetings they have about everything. Some of it must have stuck.”  
There’s silence as they tackle the salmon. She has a fleck of sauce on her chin, and he watches her lick her lips absently, as she removes it. His feet trap hers under the table, and she does it again, more purposively. She watches him swallow.  
“I’m wondering,” she says.  
“Yes?”  
“I’m wondering if that qualifies as enough talking. Because I need to think about things on the career front. You’re right. It’s just I don’t feel like thinking about them right now. There are other things on my mind that I think need to be cleared up first.”  
The plates are cleared. Coffee is being offered by the waiter, but he disappears, ignored.  
“We can talk later.”  
The waiter appears again, with the bill. She makes an effort, a real one, to take it, but he’s quicker than she is, and she lets him. It would be trite, he feels, to say that the air feels charged, but there’s not even a discussion of separate taxis, and when he gives the driver his address, she takes his hand.  
In the hallway of his apartment block, she pins him to the wall, and when he comes to his senses, his shirt is mysteriously unbuttoned. Inside his front door, he strips her of her dress, and she hisses as the cold hits. There’s warmth under the covers, and neither of them feels the need to talk.  
After, hands slightly more calmly wandering, she falls asleep on his chest, her breath tickling his chest hair, and he wonders at the whole thing. It’d been meant to clear their heads, make it possible to think about next steps, how she and he would conquer the universe, or at least as much of it as they were interested in. Speaking for himself, at least until she woke up and he could tease at her again, it had been fuel to the fire. Under the bedspread, she’s naked, and warm, and the real is infinitely better than the imagined. Despite his best efforts, slumber takes him.


	8. Part 8: weekends are for everything that the weeks are not

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beatrice forgets to go home. So does Ben.

In the morning, he wakes and she’s gone. He pulls his boxers on, and looks himself over in the bathroom mirror and it’s worse than expected. Does the necessary, washes his face, and tells himself to pull it together. She probably needs space. He probably needs space. It’s not something to be rushed. She should be allowed her retreat, and he should not call her. There’s probably a rule about that. Claude would know.  
It transpires she’s only gone so far as the kitchenette, where she’s nursing a tea, scrutinising her phone, squinting slightly in the morning light, and wearing one of his undershirts.  
“Kettle’s boiled,” she notes, looking him square in the eye. She’s all challenge again, this morning.  
He doesn’t mind. He doesn’t need space if she doesn’t. She tastes of tea, and it doesn’t take too much convincing to pull her back into the bedroom.  
He’s allowed to leave the bed to make her toast. He complains, halfheartedly, about crumbs, as she gesticulates while tracing out her grievances against the BBC, and the documentary she’d had planned and canned. She points out that he’s going to need to change the sheets, after. And pulls him down in the crumbs, and convinces him he doesn’t care.  
They eat baked beans for lunch and he convinces her to shower with him. The towels in the serviced apartment are fluffier than hers, and he promises to buy her fresh ones, when he moves in.  
The room goes a little quiet. He feels uncertain again, for the first time since the night before.  
She’s taken unawares. She hasn’t thought further than the hour, the day, the week ahead. And she still wants to see his curls on her pillow.  
“I’ll get a key cut Monday.”  
She wasn’t expecting the smile, or the way in which he leaps on her. She’s ticklish, she discovers, and it’s almost as much fun to roughhouse with him as it is the other. Almost. The couch is just big enough. Just.  
She tells him that she has to go home at some point, clean knickers and all that. He points out that she could just not wear knickers and he’d be quite fine with that. She sends him out to find dinner.  
And rummages.  
It’s a serviced apartment, it’d been a quick move from London, and he’d lost his lease. The furniture, electronics in London had been rented. Everything that was Benedick’s was here. Bachelors travel light, he’d said.  
There is very little of Benedick here, in amongst the neutral rented furnishings. Two bags, and four suits hanging in the cupboard, and she doesn’t rifle bags. No books, but a kindle, and the one collected volume of Shakespeare’s biggest hits. Toiletries in the bathroom cupboard, all boring, and safe.  
The kindle isn’t protected. Ben reads, she discovers. He reads everything, economics, world history, detective potboilers, space operas, and all at the same time, about five books bookmarked. She doesn’t read online, and she has too many books for someone her age, collected like cats. She finds a Russian vampire novel, and half an hour later, there’s pizza.  
In the morning, she tells him she really does have to go home. He walks her home. Then it seems silly, since he’s there, for him not to come up. She can see him inventorying each room as he enters it, and can’t read what he’s thinking. This is it, she’s thinking. This is all I’ve got. Nothing more to see.  
There’s a world map above a mantelpiece, with places circled. Postcards tabbed to different locations. He can’t tell whether the postcards are blank on the other side, or are from friends, and he’ll have to uncover that mystery sooner rather than later. Renew his passport. Her bedroom is very still, very white. Lying on his back, head on the pillow, it’s like he’s floating. Like a cloud.  
He leaves it as late as he can, after dinner, after coffee, after night kisses, to go back to the sterile serviced apartments. His suits are there.


	9. Part 9: in which the Hero returns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's unfinished business between Hero and Claude. There's always going to be unfinished business between Hero and Claude. It's just now Benedick and Beatrice are stuck squarely in the middle

On Monday, she’s not the first to work, but she’s a little earlier than normal, as is he. At lunchtime, she goes to the locksmith. He has towels to find. He uses the key that night.  
On Tuesday, she wakes up first, with a possessive arm around her middle. He looks younger in his sleep, as she supposes, does she. He offers to cook, and she’s surprised to discover he can, and it’s palatable, although the flat now smells of rosemary. He washes, she dries. While debating pension reform, as you do, if you’ve covered it together that night.  
On Wednesday, he goes for a run first thing. She doesn’t jog. It’s all sweaty and bouncing everywhere. She hasn’t felt the need. Watching him sprightly bound down her street, she’s not inclined to change her mind, although, and she doesn’t tell him this, she likes the way he smells when he comes back, all tight curls, and tangy. They’re late to work, and any other day of the week it wouldn’t make a difference, but Hero’s there, and it does.  
She’s all fragile, bandage off, and being cooed over, and Beatrice can see she’s had about enough, she’s Daddy’s little princess only up to a point, and that point was where she was made to answer ridicule at the front of a church. Someone’s got to draw the spotlight. She makes a decision.  
His lips are soft on hers, but his eyes, when he draws back, are questioning.  
But the kiss had the desired effect, and the vultures on them both, and she’s sure he can defend himself, and he does, and she does, and everyone is appropriately shocked at the speed at which they’re moving, and Hero’s allowed her space to sit, and be quite quiet and regroup.  
She takes Hero for a walk, after, down the boardwalk, and they sit and swing their legs with their coffees, like children with ices. Hero’s not asking any questions, it’s the monologue again. It’s like every bitter thing Beatrice’s ever thought or said about men, and their stupidity, all digested and reframed and centred on Claude. Staring at the seagulls, divebombing the waves, and letting the ice drip onto the rocks below, Hero unfolds like an origami crane, back into her plain paper self, how she’d slept with Don once, two years ago, after a drunken Friday night, feeling sorry for him, his wife off away to London with another bloke, and why shouldn’t she, it’s only sex, and then he couldn’t leave it alone. The letters, claiming ownership. The flowers, left with a note on her doorstep, crumpled sad things from a gas station, with boxes of chocolates. She doesn’t even like chocs. Not that he’d know. And they work together. And her dad. And then there’s Claude this lovely man, with the gorgeous hair, and such a sweet nature, not setting a foot wrong the whole way, asking her what she wanted at every turn, to the point, just between the two of them, where it was a bit much. They hadn’t even slept together until after he’d proposed. Such a romantic. And her father liked him.  
Then after, looking at him in the hospital room, the way in which he’d looked at her, like she was a piece of trash, of used bubble gum at the bottom of his shoe.  
“Not worth your time, my dear. Plenty more fish in the sea.”  
“It’s not even that. It’s like, he thinks I didn’t exist until he came along. Neither of them. Fuck them. Rather, don’t fuck them. It’s not like either of them,” and she’s sniffing, “were that good anyway. I was going to put the effort in, train him up. Like a puppy, Bea. Like a puppy,” and now the ice is pitched into the sea, and there’s ugly crying happening again, and the ice cream napkins leave smudges.  
There’s nothing she can say to that, except that Hero’s not wrong, and she’s better off without him, both of which she’s said innumerable times since it happened. It’s what Hero needs to hear though, and Beatrice is just the best friend, and best not matron of honour, and Hero loves her well and truly, and she’s sorry for all the kerfuffle.  
It’s not exactly clear what Hero’s apologising for, and whether or not it’s for Claude, the snot on Bea’s shoulder, or setting Beatrice up, it seems politic to accept.  
That night, Hero delivers the weather report with aplomb, wishing everyone a happy Wednesday.  
After, Beatrice texts Ben that she’s going to the gym. It’s the work gym, she doesn’t go all that often, but she has excess anger that she needs to burn out with deadlifts, and punching bags, or she’s going to let fly on him. And that’s not fair.  
It’s well after 7 when she feels she’s burnt it out of her. He hasn’t texted back. He’s not at the flat. He’s not answering the phone. It’s not immediately clear to Beatrice what’s going on, and she doesn’t like uncertainty. Doesn’t like this feeling that the suddenly empty flat’s giving her. She wards it off with leftover chicken and salad, and tries not to let her mind wander to whether he’s left left, or whether he’s just left. There’s no point in drinking the flattened bubbly. Or to watching the mindless television. She lies in bed, and stares at the ceiling.  
In the morning, he’s next to her. If she cranes her neck, she can see two big bags neatly stacked in the living room. He was moving in.  
He wasn’t leaving her.  
He’s awake when she looks back. And they have their first fight. Not about the moving in, it’s as if provided they don’t acknowledge what they’re doing, it’s all going to be fine. It’s about the kiss, and professional boundaries, and he’s not an object lesson or a distraction and requires a bit more notice if that kind of thing is going to be frequent, and does she intend doing it on air to spice up the ratings, because they’ll probably have to notify the powers that be, and warps at light speed into why would you possibly think that Claude deserves a second chance to try to ruin that poor girl’s life, don’t you dare tell him to call her, she’s not in a fit state and even if she was she’d bite his bloody head off, and transmogrifies into you can’t control everything and everyone Bea, and there’s a don’t call me Bea, I’ve told you not to call me Bea, and ends with a spectacular bout of sex.  
After, she looks shell shocked. Spreadeagled on the bed, every muscle admitting defeat. His hair is standing on end, where she’d pulled at it.  
They’re late for work, again.  
The next week, Hero corners Ben, not Beatrice. Tells him to arrange a meeting, because she doesn’t want to text him. Claude comes up on the first train Saturday, and hovers, nervously, at the flat. Beatrice has arranged to be elsewhere, after giving Ben a shopping list of why this is not a good idea.  
Claude’s a mate, though, and even if mates are as thick as two short planks and entirely wrong in what they’ve done, Ben’s a big believer in second chances. And in letting people make their own mistakes. Beatrice promises, reluctantly, to let him handle it. But mistimes the exit and opens the door to leave and looks up into Claude’s face. Swears.  
Claude pushes past her, walks into the living room and blows it further. “Knew it. Knew you’d be on. A Lexus. Should’ve taken the bet. I can tell you don’t need to worry about any Don Juan with Bea. None of that. She’s not the type. Look at this, mr and mrs domestic. Exactly how long did you wait to move in after the wedding?”  
Beatrice turns on her heel and makes for the kitchen, muttering under her breath, with increasing volume, until she reaches it. Ben can hear the crockery clash in the sink.  
“What exactly do you mean this time, Claude?”  
“All I’m saying is that she didn’t. Not since I’ve been at the station, anyway.”  
Beatrice calls from the kitchen. “Sort this, or I will. There are knives in here. Get him out of my flat. Out! The pair of you.”  
Ben pushes on with the plan. “Can you not shut it, Claude? Leave well enough alone.”  
“It’s a good thing, mate. You’re never going to have to lie there and wonder.”  
“For God’s sake, Claude! Not that it’s any of your business, and it’s really not, but it’s all just nothing, isn’t it? Anything that’s happened before. We’ve been over this, you and me. If you loved Hero, it wouldn’t matter, any of it. Were you not listening, you lummox? Sit your arse down there, and I’ll run you through it again, because I’m not letting you anywhere near Hero if you’re pulling the same stunt. Right?”  
Claude, with abject and stumbling apologies, sits. Beatrice strides past him, treading accidentally on purpose on his foot, with the excuse of milk for the tea, taking the broken crockery with her, and an unshakeable conviction that Ben can be running through the same chat with Claude next day, next month, next year, and he’s never going to change, never going to be good enough for Hero, and she makes sure that she’s long enough gone, that when she pushes the door open, there’s Ben with two mugs of black lightly steaming, and an absence of berk.  
She takes the seat across the coffee table, unsure. She pictures Hero, and Claude, so much bigger, and the two of them such simpletons, that either could be persuaded of anything. The tea’s a little tepid when she’s poured the milk, and it seems too hard to either put the milk in the fridge, or heat the tea in the microwave. Ben watches her closely.  
“Hero’s met him downstairs. They’re for a walk down the front. She’s to call if there’s anything.”  
Beatrice goes to object, but it’s too late. She’s never been one for wasting an opportunity to vent, but there’s nothing left to say on this front, and it’s too late to say it.  
Ben reaches a placating hand, but the table’s too far, and it’s retracted.  
“Do you want me to go after them?” He’s somewhat surprised at himself, for offering.  
She shakes her head, looking at her tea. “You said the right thing, somewhere in there. She’ll call.”  
She’s still looking at her tea.  
“It’s not that interesting, is it, your tea?”  
She looks up, and she’s red rimmed.  
“It’s all just so awful. The whole business. Everything’s so sordid, and spoilt, when you push it over like this. Who slept with whom and when and how. What a horrible man. What a horrible thing to do. And now he’s thinking about us, about you and me, and who’s doing what to whom, and how many people you’ve shagged, and whether I’ve kept myself clean waiting for you all these years, not that I’ve been waiting, I didn’t even know, and it’s just making my skin crawl.”  
“Hey. Hey now.” He climbs over the table, kneels by her side, holds her hands away from the tea. “Forget it. Forget him. Hero’s not going to be taking him back any time soon. She’s dodged a bullet. He’s a git. Next time, he’s not coming here, if there’s a next time. Let him think what he wants. It’s bound to be wrong.”  
She shakes her head. “Would it matter to you? Say it’s Peter who comes up to you, and says he slept with me. Last month, last year, whenever. What do you do?”  
Ben doesn’t let go, but he feels his foundation shift, slightly. Peter, the father figure, is pretty unlikely to have shagged Bea, but he’s being asked a serious question, deserves a serious answer. So he imagines it. There’s cold in his stomach. Remembers the half hearted flirtations with Hero. The slightly more serious offers he’d had from Margaret, the tight perky nipples under the shirt, and can’t actually remember how his body’d responded at the time. It’s gone. It’s a ghost.  
“I say, that’s not something I’m talking to you about. And I’d thank you to respect her privacy. And things along that line. And I’d be thinking, that I’d need to tell you that he’s spreading it. And that’s it.”  
Beatrice shakes his hands free.  
Stands up with the tea again, and heads for the kitchen. Flouncing hair, and stamping like an elephant.  
“I meant it. It’s nothing.”  
He’s wary now. And the phone’s buzzing, on top of it all. Both of them.  
His is from Claude: She’s chucked me. I’m on the night train. Thanks for nothing.  
Little shit.  
Hers, on the lock screen, from Hero: I’m fine. You’re right, I do feel better.  
He hands her his phone first, when she storms back in, empty handed, then hers. She reads them both, and throws them at the sofa, and he winces as hers bounces to the floor, screen cracking.  
“Tell me what to do. Come on. Let me help.”  
She kisses him, fiercely, pushing him back against the wall, and they stumble to the bedroom. He’s vocal, and she’s silent, and he calls her Bea without thinking, and she doesn’t tell him to stop.


	10. Part 10: challenge accepted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When in doubt, raise the stakes.

On Monday, everyone at the station knows that Ben’s moved in with her, and Beatrice is amazed that in between the grovelling and apologies, Claude has managed to figure out a new way to irritate. Ben’s more annoyed than she is, because Margaret’s asked him how it feels to be a kept man, and he demands her bank details, so that he can pay half the rent. This is at loud volume, in front of the news team. Silence, as they all wait to see what she’ll do. She gathers her handbag and leaves, for the privacy of her own room.  
They hadn’t even had a chance to talk about it. The rent, the gas, the electrics, the phone, and she can’t remember if she’s even given him the wifi password. He’s just there. Filling a Ben shaped hole in the flat she hadn’t realised she had.  
She does him one better, she messages him that they need to open a joint bank account. That’ll shut him up. Shut them all up.  
Hero peers around the edge of the door, quietly. Then more forcefully shuts it behind her. Dragging attention away from the screen, and Ben’s response, which she hasn’t seen.  
“Beatrice, I just wanted a chat."  
“Now’s not the best of times, Hero. Wrangling bank accounts, getting on with life. In private.”  
“It’s just, I’m a bit worried about you.”  
“Join the club. And yet life goes on.”  
“No, I mean, Beatrice, about Ben. I think you’re being a bit hasty.”  
Beatrice pushes the chair back and turns fully to Hero. Hero, who she loves, she reminds herself, and needs not to overly damage with nasty comments, particularly just at the present.  
“I think that you’re being a hypocrite. I think you’re projecting from that twat of a Claude and I want nothing to do with it.”  
“Beatrice, last month you hated him. You threatened to quit when he came back, dad told me.”  
“That was last month, before you lot set us up. You do remember that, don’t you Hero? That this is very much, very largely, something that you and Claude are responsible for? I tell you, when we get married, you can be the bloody matron of honour.”  
“When, Beatrice? You’re getting married now?”  
She holds the chair between her body and Hero, like a shield. “We might. It’s possible. The universe is full of many things that might happen without your approval. Right now, he’s just living with me. Did we need your blessing for that, did we? I thought it was implied from the way in which you’d manipulated us into the situation. Hmm?”  
“All I’m saying is just it’s a bit quick. That’s all. I mean, look at me and Claude.”  
“It’s been years coming, Hero. I hardly think that we’re in any way comparable to whatever it was you saw in that caveman. I mean, honestly, Hero, what were you thinking?”  
Hero takes a step back. Beatrice a step forward, pushing the chair with her.  
“I mean, Ben’s a tosser sometimes, but I know he’s never going to do me the profound dishonour of calling me out in front of a whole church.”  
Hero’s face goes white, and then red.  
Beatrice doesn’t stop.  
“I know that if we fall out, it’s going to be violent and messy and horrible. Of course it is. How could it not be? But if we do, it’s going to be after we take our best shots. So don’t you dare tell me not to try. Don’t you dare tell me not to be happy.”  
Hero takes another step back, and another, and Beatrice can see tears in the corners of her eyes, and she knows she’s going to need to apologise later, but right now, she slams the door behind Hero as she leaves, and it’s profoundly satisfying.  
Ben’s messaged her to meet him the lobby.  
He’s actually just outside her room, and he’s unreadable, no eyebrows, no quirked lips. Blank look of terror, might be what she’d choose to describe it as to Hero, but she’s just ticked Hero off, and there’s no audience, no hint of why he’s here.  
He’s taking her hand, and there’s something in that. It’s warm. The chill of the dressing room’s leaving her body through him, and the warmth stays with her in the chill of the boardwalk.  
He’s walked her down the pier, uncharacteristically silent to the very end, extra breezy and cold, before he lets her go.  
“I heard what you said to her.”  
She shivers and arms around her body, she waits.  
“Look. Maybe we are moving a bit fast. There’s a one bedder around the corner I can lease. Cool things down. Be a bit more sensible. But,” and he puts his hands on her biceps, rubbing them, like she’s a cat that needs to be soothed, who might scratch, “we could just keep going. Blaze of glory and all that.”  
“So. Bank?”  
He nods.  
There’s still hours to go before broadcast, but there’s film to be shot, and scripts to write, and responsibilities not to shirk. The queue is mercifully short, but the paperwork isn’t. Signing his name next to hers feels appropriately final. Cards should arrive in three to four working days. On the way into the building, they stop in at accounting, and give them the new details for salary deposit. Trudy doesn’t raise an eyebrow, doesn’t tell them that it’s not a good idea. Trudy doesn’t care. Peter, on the other hand, does. There’s a coffee table, and a budget, and a business plan that depends on not losing another host in the next six months, and there’s a lecture about professional behaviours, and not letting emotion impact on your on screen persona, and not melting down in the rundown, and not, for the love of God, making the weather girl cry, if she’s related to the head of station.  
There’s solemn promises made. Beatrice makes Hero a cup of tea, and she’s forgiven.  
That month, when their pay hits the joint bank account, Beatrice doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Ben’s pay is exactly half more than hers. He’s been gone for three years, and she’s been here, holding the fort together, the tried and trusty Beatrice, proven herself, done more than asked, always, and he’s back for half a millisecond and so far outearning her that there’s no hope of even questioning it with Leo. It’s meant, it’s on purpose, and it’s insulting.  
They have a civilised discussion over the tea and toast that morning, after Ben’s back from his morning run, no puffy cheeks no more, no sir. Civilised for about thirty seconds, as long as it takes Ben to civilly point out that he’d simply asked for what he was being paid in the city, and how was he to know what she was paid? It wasn’t the done thing to ask. If it weren’t for the bank account, she’d have never known, and he certainly hadn’t, and what was the harm, it was all into the same account now, in any case.  
Beatrice chips her favourite mug when she puts it down too vehemently. It matters, she says, through clenched teeth, because money’s how the station shows what it really values. She’s given her life to the station for the last five, and they’ve put their budget to patching the gap, not keeping her. She should walk, she says.  
Ben’s more careful with how he puts his mug, or rather, the mug that he’s using, down. Nothing’s broken.  
“Hold up,” he says. “I’m not a bit of mortar, you know. I’d like to think I’m more useful than that. And yes, you should walk. Not just for the money. Live a little.”  
“If you give me the ‘you’re more than a newsreader, you’re a communicator’ line, I will throw you out on the street. Mug and all. Don’t think I won’t.”  
“Suits you, this angry thing you’ve got going on this morning. Well, decide what you want before we get there. I’ve four months to go on my contract, but don’t let that stop you. I have connections, now, if you want?” He waggles his eyebrows suggestively.  
She punches his shoulder with the hand that’s not holding the mug, and goes to ponder in the shower.  
He’s a list written by the time she’s done, pros and cons, major cities around the place, and down the bottom, he’s written, and circled, family. With a question mark.  
She puts it in her handbag without reading it. There’s no time now before the run down, and there’s an interview edit she has to review, and she hasn’t decided whether it’s worth raising it now, before she knows what she wants. It’s been five years, and there’s something very safe about the walls, like a little castle, a little fiefdom, she knows these people and how to pull their strings, and when not to. Knowing that they’ve pulled hers reveals the whole thing as a fraud, a paper castle, not bricks, and it’s not quite the right moment to blow it all down. For one thing, while she has a little saved, it’s not enough to say hang it all, and quit on the spot, as a matter of principle, the way she wants. For another, Ben’s here for four months, or he loses his spot, and from what he’d said previously, he’d not exactly had job offers lined up for consideration.  
Fine. Bastards, but fine. Play out the four months, and use it to find a better spot. No favours, no extras, nothing that she doesn’t want to do. Just what she’s being paid to do.  
And check the savings.  
After the rundown, when she’s sketching out the outline of the day, when she’s going to be on site, editing, and when she needs to be back down in the studio, she has time to do so.  
It’s significantly higher than it ought to be. This isn’t the joint bank account, there shouldn’t be any extra, and yet there is. There’s a good 20K extra. She pulls up the statement, and it’s from him. He didn’t do it that morning, either, this isn’t some sort of quixotic notion of equality. It’s from when they set up the joint bank account. It’s a puzzler.  
She has no time, she’s already established, for midday or even afternoon delights, and certainly not to try to diplomatically prise out of Benedick why he’s done what he’s done. Not until afterwards.  
All through the show, when they’re on air, when she’s not talking, she’s watching him. Looking for clues. Staring, like if she does it long enough, it’ll become clear. He’s smiling, genuine to camera, as always, roguish squint of the eye that the prime audience segment of middleaged women, and men who would want to be his friend, love as much as she does. There’s no clue to be had.  
They’re at the pub that night, with the crew, and no opportunity to speak without being heard, and she’s had enough of that. One half, and a pub dinner, and they’re done, and the din of the herd fades behind them, as they’re out into the increasing chill.  
“Spill,” he says, as they walk. “You’ve been staring all night, and I haven’t grown a new beard or some hideous growth, or Margaret would have dealt with it. Spill.”  
“I find myself possessed of riches that I didn’t know about. Why is that?”  
“Ah.”  
“Yes, ah. Spill.”  
“Would it suit you to know I don’t have a rational explanation?”  
She shakes her head at him, in the dark, dislodging stars, as it starts to rain. Conversation pauses, as they trot along the dark street, dodging bushes and tripping on tree roots, until they reach their flat. Benedick fumbles the key in, and Beatrice crowds in behind, hands in pockets, head ducked down against the rain.  
There’s clothes removed and hung in the bath to dry, and she rubs her hair dry with a towel, as he brushes his teeth. It’s been less than six weeks, and here she is with all his money, and him naked in her bathroom, brushing his teeth. Without a rational explanation.  
She makes a passing swipe at hers, and follows him to bed, cold under the sheets, feet on his which are unaccountably warmer than hers.  
“Do you have any explanation? Otherwise I’m going to transfer the money back tomorrow. You can’t just do things like this.”  
He can’t see her eyes in the dark, but he can feel her warming up, relaxing down into the springs.  
“It’s part of the blaze of glory. I belong to you, or I don’t.”  
She’s silent after that. She’s silent before, during, and after, and there’s a point where he’s looking at her, and she thinks that this is the moment to capture, to play over and over again, to freeze, and by the time she finishes thinking that, it’s gone, and he buries his head in her shoulder, and bites down. After, she wants to ask him what he meant by family, but she thinks, finally, that she’s reached the point where that might be rushing things. Perhaps by next week, it won’t be. She falls asleep, his arm around her, tracing up and down her spine.


	11. Part 11: in which Beatrice walks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's only so long that Beatrice can stay after that

She’s moody all month, every run down when Leo stifles her ideas, and sends her off on Women’s Institute sketches, to play off against the broader economic, Brexit, politico pieces Ben’s pitching. It’s not that she doesn’t like the WI, they’re lovely ladies, ranging from Hero’s age up to the eighties, some coming out from nursing homes for special occasions, and it’s a totally valid way of spending some time, she’d recommend it, and does on a near nightly basis. It chafes, is all. She can do better, has done, and she’s not being allowed to. Plus there’s the pay thing. She’d never known what Keith was on, had assumed that they were on equal footing, after all, same job, even if she was propping him up half the time, and now suspects the worst. Knows the worst is likely. He’d been a friend of Leo’s after all, jobs for the boys was what she’d thought after Ben split and Keith was parachuted in. Cutting comments in the bullpen aren’t as satisfying as they once were, not without the knowledge of a job well done, and the belief that she was a valued member of the team.  
She’s witness to the new young bloke, Stuart, bonding with Benedick, and he’s given actual stories too, even if they’re only about traffic at this point. Leo takes Stuart under his wing too, and there’s special boy’s nights at the pub, from which Ben returns sozzled, and snores, and she’s on the outside looking in. Again. Except that she gets to sleep with Ben. A definite plus, but not sufficient to make up for the erosion of her job and her mental state, and not while he’s snoring to this extent.  
Makes a list of her own. It includes stations around the country, perhaps even in London, although she’s not that keen. If they don’t want Ben, they sure as hell won’t want her, not “pretty”, not perky and not quite in the cookie cutter mould. There’s overseas, Australia likes the English accents, she’s been told, but the disadvantage is that it’s the other side of the world. And it’s not England. She circles family on her list too, without really probing what she’s thinking about.  
Then there’s left field. What she’s really excited the most about, she thinks, 2.30 am or so, Ben having mercifully found a position on his side and ceased the chainsaw noise, would be to do more big stories. More time. More depth. She’s good on screen, she’s a good interview, and she’s an eye for a shot, she’s been told. She could try producing. She’s good at being bossy, she’s been told. What she’d actually love, is to be funded to run her own series. There’s a separate list for that, themes of globalisation, immigrants enriching local communities, the country reshaping itself, the city decentralising, Boris on a bike, the WI on the internet, and she falls asleep on her keyboard.  
Ben’s head is splitting in the morning. Every noise Bea (his head won’t co-operate long enough to replace with Beatrice) makes is crushing, and he wishes that he could sleep. He’s promised young Stuart to take him on the rounds though, down to the local court, there’s a C-list celebrity being heard for a DUI, and Stuart is appropriately star struck, even if Benedick isn’t. She makes him toast and tea, and is mercifully silent.  
The list isn’t discovered until after dinner. She’s out with Hero, as sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose, she’d said in her text, and not there to answer questions. There’s no timeline on any of it. Also fair. What he can’t see is space for him. She’s not forgotten, he knows, that he’s three and a bit months left on his contract. There’s the station, too, if they both go.  
It’s a good list, though, the second one. What he can read of it. It’s a change manifesto, and he adds that as a title. Adds gender roles to the list, and a section on the reverse diaspora, coming home, and a section on craft beer and football hooliganism, two sides of the same coin, and race riots and fear.  
Pulls out the laptop and starts looking for funding contacts, a tax adviser, a lawyer, a production team. Pulls together a rough budget, camera crew, sound, editing, and a timeline. Falls asleep on the sofa, it’s been a long hungover day, and her sofa is only firm and unyielding in appearance, not actuality.  
She returns home, not quite as smashed as he was. She’s not going to snore, doesn’t snore, probably will snore, caught it from him, if he raises it, and there he is, lying flat on the sofa, dead to the world and she wants to kill him and kiss him all at once. Kicks the end of the sofa instead, and he startles awake. It’s a sudden transition, and it takes him a moment to focus, as if he’s the one still drunk, not her. She’s suddenly clear.  
“Why are you not in bed?” she challenges, and at the same time “Why haven’t you quit?” he says.  
“How can you ask me that? How dare you ask me that?”  
He’s standing now, and she’s facing him off across the room. Arms folded, mascara panda ringed around her eyes, and way too angry for this time of night. For any time of day, truth be told. Still gorgeous. Maybe more gorgeous. The skirt of the dress crumpled around her thighs.  
“Look at my face, when I’m shouting at you!”  
He hadn’t been aware. The list, he’s conscious, is on the end of the sofa, and he makes a stretch, grabs it. Waves it at her.  
“If this is what you want to do, why haven’t you quit? Why haven’t you talked to me about it?”  
She takes a deep breath, and he can smell the tequila from the other side of the room.  
“First of all, first of all, there’s been no time when you weren’t firmly attached to the side of your new Claude, bringing the boys up in the way of the world, boozing it up for the benefit of all your shared sex advantage. As if he needed it. He’s got a cock, and that’s all that counts in the world of newsreading, as we all know. As we all know! The girl’s only useful while she’s young and pretty, and I’m past my expiry date. Well past. Second of all. Second. You didn’t even show up to tell me, last time. No. No. Last time, there was me, in the restaurant, waiting all sweaty palmed, and you didn’t even call. ‘The gentleman said to say no hard feelings.’ No hard feelings, Ben. No hard bloody feelings. You didn’t talk to me. You didn’t say, oh, by the way, I’m leaving the station and you’re going to have to work with a wine sodden old lecherous ape for the next three years instead of flirting with me, oh, no, there wasn’t even a text message. So don’t you talk to me about not talking to me. I can keep going all night. I just need some water. And an aspirin. Third. Third. Third is,”  
And she loses her train of thought, as he nudges the water glass towards her, and she takes a drink. He uses the silence. Moves towards her.  
“Third is your real one: that you’re afraid because it’s unknown and what if you fail. Because you’ve done this forever, and you know how to do it, and I think you can do it, are doing it, in your sleep. Third is you’re being a coward, and you’re not good at being a coward, and it’s confusing you. Fourth is that you’d be leaving people behind who count on you. Hero. Leo. Peter. Me. And sometimes you have to do that. And if we’re talking about that bit, I’m sorry, again, but I had to. And I should have called you but I was stupid. Sorry. I love you. There’s no expiry date.”  
She hands him the water glass, empty. He puts it down on the coffee table.  
“Now look, it’s a bloody good list, and I’d say that I can tell you what I’m thinking about it, if you want, but I think we should go to bed. It’s 2am and for the moment, we both have jobs to go to tomorrow,” he says  
“I am not a coward,” she says, but the voice is small, and she’s swaying.  
“No, you’re not,” he reassures.  
“I’m not leaving you,” she says.  
“No. You’re just going to be going on ahead. I’m going to follow after. Partners.”  
“Promise?” she asks, and turns away so he can unzip her, and he does.  
“Yeah. Promise. You’re going to use the savings, and I’m going to draw the paycheque until you’ve cut the first series, if we can find a backer. We’re going to form a partnership. Or a company. Whatever the lawyer says.”  
She turns, and the dress falls away. She’s wearing the black lace that she says is scratchy. It doesn’t look scratchy. It looks enticing. Shadows.  
“I can’t use your money.”  
“It’s our money. And yes, you can.”  
“We’re not married, Ben. It’s still your money, you’re just being foolish about it, and I’d be taking advantage. I can’t do that.”  
His hands nudge their way up her ribcage. It doesn’t feel scratchy to him.  
“Marry me then.”  
“Be serious.”  
“I am. That way you can take advantage of me every day. I’ll even grow back the beard that I know you were dying to try out. Dress up as a pirate. Let you take advantage of me properly.”  
“I’m not even sure I want to any more.”  
“The pirate thing or the marriage thing?”  
“Both. Neither. I’m not admitting to anything. I’m just very very drunk. You’re taking advantage of me.”  
“Well, I’m certainly trying to. I’ll ask you again when you have the hangover you’re going to have after all this tequila, but I’ll bring you a cup of tea and toast in first.”  
She pushes his hands up, stopping his mouth with a kiss.  
After, he kisses better all the marks the scratches have left, or where she claims there’s marks, until she falls asleep. She snores when she’s drunk. There’s also drool, but about that he’ll be a gentleman and not tell her.  
In the morning, he brings in the tea and toast, and she knocks the tea over as she races to the loo. It’s not quite the right moment any more, and any way, they have to get to work. She still smells of tequila as they trudge in past the security desk.  
The photo of her on the wall, from eighteen months ago, is a challenge. When her head stops pounding, she knocks on Leo’s door.  
It’s a shoddy door, as far as doors go. It’s not in any way imposing. It doesn’t pretend to be. But her knock isn’t as loud as it should be. It’s almost as if she doesn’t want it to be heard. Not a coward, though. She knocks again.  
This time, Leo opens it, and tells her she’s early for the run down, and she says that they have to talk.  
Giving notice takes less time than she’d expected. Perhaps Leo had been wanting to move Hero up anyway, which is his interim solution. She loves Hero dearly, but it’s not exactly going to be great for the station’s street cred. It will be great for audience size, which is what Leo’s looking for. He wishes her well with the series. Says if there’s anything he can do, to let him know. Two weeks, and she’s going to be gone, so she says thanks.  
She doesn’t go to the rundown. Ben can tell her anything she needs to know. She needs to make some calls.


	12. Part 12: strange as the thing I know not

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Benedict can't wait.

The first day without her is beyond strange. Hero’s in her dressing room, in her place. Stuart’s looking to him, so he keeps up with the jokes, keeps the team together, does the right thing. Everyone seems happy enough at the end of the day, but he keeps looking for her. She, of course, is not there. He told her to not be there. It’s the right thing that she’s not there. Doesn’t stop him looking, like a hungry dog without a bone.  
The lawyer’s made them a company, and he fought for it to be called BeanBen, but she insisted on something more businesslike, and Bea’s prevailed, with InTruth Productions, LLC. She’s out shooting when he comes home, and he puts the pasta on. Spagbol, comfort food against the cold weather, and the fact that she’s not there, and he’s singing Deano against the oregano and garlic, and a glass of red in, when she comes in.   
She’s as high as a kite and talking a million miles an hour, and it says nothing good about him that his first reaction, unthinking, is jealousy. He can fake it until he is in actuality as happy in her reflected happiness as he wants to be, and it’s only another glass of wine until he’s there. It’s the thought of sitting across from Hero, and Stuart, and the mundanity of it all, for another three months, that keeps him weighted.   
He offers to watch the raw footage, and they plonk the laptop up on the dining table as they eat.   
It’s good.   
“It’s good,” he says. “I want to quit now and come do it with you.”  
She elbows him. “You’re my sugar daddy, remember? I won’t marry you if you quit now.”  
He coughs as the carrot lodges in his throat.   
“That’s a yes, then?”  
“Yes, of course it’s a yes.” She’s watching the footage and not him. Very pointedly watching the footage and not him. “I told you. You’re frighteningly perfect for me. Or I’m taking pity on you because you’re plainly wasting away without me. Pick the answer you like the best.”  
“I tell you, Beatrice, you love me. And I’d work in an office in London if it made you happy. Please don’t make me work in an office in London.”  
She kisses him, leaving behind traces of tomato sauce. “I am so happy. This moment, right here.”  
He kisses her back, stubble scraping. “Good. It’s really good. And I’m picking a date and booking a church before you change your mind.”  
She laughs, and goes back to eating and watching. After watching her a little longer, he takes the plates. Retreats to the living room. Emails Hero. It had been, after all, a nice church. Emails Claude. Because, even if he had been an enormous tool, and an idiot and deserved all the tonguelashings Beatrice could deliver in her non drunken state, who else is he going to ask?  
Hero calls him immediately, and the high pitched squealing is not something he’d prepared himself for. Handing over the phone, and watching Bea’s face, neither is she. She hands it back after a conversation monosyllabic at her end, and Hero starts shooting details at him like a machine gun, every word a new errand. The wedding party can be at Leo’s, she’ll sort it, no need for a weekend in the country, how not delightful, and she tries to talk him into fancy dress, or a theme of some sort, and when he surrenders and hangs up, they look at each other. Silently.  
“Is Gretna Green an option?” he says.  
Bea shakes her head at him. “Now who’s being the coward?”  
He mock growls, and goes back to looking at the list of what Hero considers non negotiables. Every item on this list is going to come at a cost, and that cost is going to have to come out of Beatrice’s budget and he hates that. It’s ridiculous. How could flowers possibly cost that much? They’ll be used for one afternoon and thrown out. And perhaps they could ask people to bring their own food. Camp out. Or do a breakfast. How much could eggs and bacon be?  
He reaches for a calculator, but the phone buzzes, and this time it’s Claude. He’s not as high pitched, and definitely not as happy, it’s all about him, and Hero, and why would Ben want to go and do the M word, and didn’t he remember that he’d called Beatrice a little vicious velociraptor, and Ben has to interject and remind Claude that he’d also likened her to a Lexus, and if he was of the view that Bea was a velociraptor, she was his velociraptor, and he liked her that way, and if Claude didn’t want to be best man that was fine. Fine. There’s hanging up.  
“Didn’t think that one through, Ben?” she says, but there’s no fire in it, and she pushes the wine bottle his way. “Careful, before I unleash the velociraptor.”  
“Perhaps I can ask Leo to cover the costs if we turn it into a publicity spot?” but she’s already shaking her head at him. “Photos only?” he asks, and she’s on board with that.   
He pours himself another glass. Emails the church. Emails the caterer. Shuts the laptop.  
Looks at her. She’s still watching the footage, making notes on a yellow pad, up to page four.  
“Put it down. Please?”  
She blinks, startled. “What?”  
“You’re my velociraptor. I like it that you’re a bit of a harpy. You know that, right?”  
“Oh, careful, Benedick. That came very close to being romantic.”  
“I think it’s only to be expected. You’ve finally agreed to make an honest man out of me. I think. Something, anyway. We’re doing this. Come to bed and I’ll make a happy woman out of you,” and he accompanies his promise with his best leer and waggle of eyebrows.  
She puts the notepad down. “Have a care, though. Velociraptors have been known to bite.”  
Benedick smiles.


	13. Part 13: in which there's no more than reasons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marriage is a house. Or a song. Or a private joke.

He moved into Leo’s place the week before. It’s a little old fashioned, but it feels like the right thing to do, and Leo’s overly grateful for the company, insists on snifters of brandy at night, and talks too much about doing the right thing, and wouldn’t it be nice if Hero and Claude found their way back together, and isn’t terribly interested in what Ben has to say about it, which is that Hero’s a little busy exploring her other options right at the present, and although Claude’s a great mate, after all he’s best man to be, he’s a bit green yet, and needs to have some of his white knight attitude knocked off, and is Ben talking a bit too much? He probably is, probably is, just too much on his mind. He’ll work on Claude. Just, after.  
She doesn’t see him all week. Oh, there’s odd socks down the bottom of the bed, where he likes to hide them like a cat bringing in a dead mouse, or so she imagines, never having had a cat of her own, too much of the stereotypical single lady. They haven’t taken pictures, there’s no charming couple portrait by her bed, and she finds herself regretting that. She’s been very good at stamping out any attempt at romance, and doesn’t quite want to analyse why. She doesn’t want to test why she’s spending so little time at home now either.  
He doesn’t call either. To be fair, he did say that he wasn’t going to, heightened anticipation and all that, and promised her faithfully that he would stop Claude from mounting any sort of chastity watch, either over her or Hero, on his honour. He also promised, although she asked him not to promise any such thing, to dream of her. And that he couldn’t be stopped from being sentimental and romantic the week of their wedding.  
She’s secretly slightly pleased. She has no idea what this wedding is going to be like, other than her own dress. She can guess at the colours, because Hero’s a terrible liar, and she knows which church, because she has to turn up there, but beyond that, it’s a mystery. She’s no parents to be consulted, and the money’s coming out of their dwindling bank account, which she’s tried not to scrutinise. There’ll be flowers, because there’s been a payment to a florist. When they arrive at the flat, along with Hero, she’s slightly surprised. It’s very edgy. Very bold. Very velociraptor purple, and spiky edges, the softness hidden within. She likes them.  
Hero does her makeup, then Beatrice wipes half of it off. She’s going to be at the altar, for better or for worse, as herself. Margaret does her hair, and it’s so beautiful, so elegant in its poise, and her neck so long as a result, that Beatrice almost makes her take it down, because she doesn’t recognise herself in it. Margaret and Hero tell her not to be stupid. That she’ll make the ever talkative Benedick shut up, and that’s no mean feat.  
Then there’s nothing left but the dress.  
Standing in front of the mirror, slim line sheath, hair fastened in place, make up fixed, Beatrice wants to cry. Wants to call Ben to make this real. To have him poke fun at the whole situation, too real. It’s his fault that she’s crying. That she’s so beautiful.  
Margaret fusses over her, blots the eyes, tells her the mascara hasn’t run, and that it’ll be right on the night, and Beatrice laugh snorts, and Hero badgers them all into the car.  
It’s too short and too long a ride, and she’s thinking about making a stab for the accelerator to bring it to an end, and at the same time making a dash for it, and recreating a runaway bride flick, surely Ben will understand, when they arrive, sandstone, and arches, and people being dispatched inside, the bride has come, the bride has come, and it’s all too late.  
She can’t feel her feet, feels like she’s going to fall, and holds Hero’s arm up the aisle. There are faces all along the way that she should be able to recognise, but she’s only got eyes for one, the target, the destination, up the end, Ben. She smiles, because she can’t help it, he’s the face on that’s the private one, just for her, the one she’s missed. The destination’s reached, and they take their places. There should be a newsdesk for them to battle across. There should be swords.  
She can feel him shaking next to her. Chances a look. He’s laughing. At the front of a church, on their wedding day.  
Which suddenly seems very appropriate. They’re at the front of a church. On their wedding day. The two of them. Confirmed bachelors. Getting married.  
“What are we doing here again?”  
“I have absolutely no idea.”  
She rests her shoulder against his, and sets sail for the future. Laughing. Together.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a tribute to the BBC Shakespeare retold version of Much Ado, where Ben and Beatrice are newsreaders, and Claudio's just as ridiculous as a sports reporter as he was a soldier.


End file.
